Uptown’s newest condo tower will be ready for its first residents this summer.

Just a year ago, the high-rise was a wreck fit only for pigeons.

The unfinished Residences at the Stoneleigh sat for more than three years as a grim reminder of the recession, which had killed condo projects in markets stretching from Las Vegas to Florida.

Now the 22-story building off Maple Avenue is racing toward completion — just in time for a rebound in the Dallas-Fort Worth housing market.

Real estate developer Mehrdad Moayedi, who bought the Stoneleigh condo out of bankruptcy and ponied up the money to finish construction, is starting to look like one shrewd fellow.

“It was one of those deals that fell in my lap,” said Moayedi, who started his Centurion American Development Group in the early 1990s, turning suburban land into home lots.

“That’s my bread and butter,” said Moayedi, who’s developed 20,000 to 30,000 lots over the years and has operations in North Texas, Austin, San Antonio and Denver.

The company has residential projects in Denton County, Prosper, Rockwall, Southlake, Frisco, Kaufman County and other locations.

“We will probably do 3,000 lots this year,” said Moayedi.

That’s about the same number the company was building before the recession hit.

“Mehrdad is the biggest lot developer in D-FW and probably in Texas,” said Ted Wilson, principal with Dallas-based housing analysts Residential Strategies.

But all those thousands of home lots aren’t as visible as what’s happening at the Stoneleigh.

Announced in mid-2005, the $100 million project was one of a handful of Uptown residential towers designed to take advantage of the housing boom.

The luxury condo building was planned as a posh companion to the historic Stoneleigh Hotel next door.

When the recession hit and the home market went bust, developers had only about 12 floors of the structure finished. The project went into bankruptcy in 2009.

Moayedi paid $4.55 million to buy the development out of Chapter 11.

He then took out a $25.3 million construction loan to finish the project.

“I don’t think it was that big a risk,” said Moayedi. “It was a great building — the meat and bones were there.

“We just tweaked it and waited for the right timing,” he said.

Indeed, the timing of the Stoneleigh project is looking pretty good.

Condo sales were up 17 percent last year in North Texas. And median condo sales prices rose 12 percent from 2011 in the Realtors’ multiple listing service.

The Residences at Stoneleigh is likely to be the only new condo high-rise coming on the market in Uptown for several years — no other projects are under construction.

Moayedi said he’s already sold a half dozen or so of the units and has another dozen sales lined up.

The number of units in the project has been scaled down to 75 large condos, which average around 3,700 square feet. The units will average more than $1 million for the unfinished shell.

“Most of the units we have sold have added more square footage,” said Moayedi, who’s targeting his building at wealthy Park Cities and North Dallas residents who live in large homes and don’t want to move to a closet-size condo.

Thinking big

Centurion American is completing the exterior of the tower first and then will sell the raw space to the residents who want a custom home.

Builders Sharif & Munir Custom Homes and Crescent Estates will handle the custom interior construction. Almost every one of the homes will be different.

“You go to some other buildings — some very nice buildings — and the units are somewhat similar,” Moayedi said. “Ninety percent of those units look alike.

“A lady moving out of a $10 million house in Highland Park wants to have her own touches.”

Mike Puls, a Dallas housing analyst who advises developers of apartments and condos, said Centurion Development is smart to focus on large units.

“They are selling lots in the sky,” said Puls. “But it’s a little tougher than a usual lot development.”

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